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Allie received a Leap Frog Word Whammer for Christmas (thanks Grandma and Grandpa Price!). We’ve been working on a lot of three letter words with Allie and so far she can “read” six words. I put read in quotations because she has them memorized, she doesn’t know how to sound out the words yet. But it’s a first step anyway.

Before I blog about what’s been going on in our lives this month I thought I should announce that we are having a BOY! We found out a few weeks early so we could tell family on Christmas day. We are very excited to welcome a little boy in May. I do have to admit, however, that I’m a little nervous about raising a boy. Allie’s been a pretty mellow child for us, in fact, we never really baby proofed our apartment. I have a feeling that this little boy will be a little more challenging. I’ve been feeling him move since about 13 weeks along, which is really soon to be feeling movement. And Jake was able to feel him move at 16 weeks along. Maybe he’ll be a good soccer player.

We are excited to start this new chapter in our lives! Bring on the trucks, cars and GI Joes!

2005-Curious

2006-Scared

2007-Terrified!

I guess she still isn’t ready to accept Santa as a friend. I thought she’d be excited this year but instead she was terrified. She closed her eyes tight and screamed while trying to escape Santa’s lap. I don’t know why we put her through this every year…but it is pretty funny.

We had our ward Christmas party tonight. They served lasagna and although Costco’s lasagna isn’t nearly as good as the real thing, I was happy that they actually served my family’s traditional Christmas meal. Unfortunately, we ate and ran because Allie skipped her nap and was exhausted. So we missed out on the actual Christmas program. We are looking forward to seeing all our family, and hopefully some friends, in a couple weeks. I can’t believe it’s December. Where has 2007 gone?

Allie has strengths in many areas but art has never been one of them. She would often get bored of coloring books or sidewalk chalk after 30 seconds. Today, however, she surprised me with this beautiful masterpiece:

I asked her to draw a picture of a smiley face and that is exactly what she did. I was in shock because most of her pictures are scribbles or circles. Assuming that it was just a fluke, I asked her to draw another one. And she did…except this time it had a frown (sorry folks, forgot to get a picture of that piece of art).

Here are a few more pictures of Allie playing outside our apartment. You can tell when I’m feeling lazy because I don’t redo her hair after her nap. (I was ecstatic when Allie’s hair was long enough for piggy tails until I realized I had to do her hair two to three times a day or else it looks like this lion’s mane).

Sitting on her favorite rock (sorry, it’s a little blurry).

Wind blowing through her fine hair.

Playing with a stick.

These dreaded words that I hoped Allie would NEVER learn or at least never care to say are now her favorite words. Since Sunday (uh,um nursery) Allie has been obsessed with this new phrase. I even catch her practicing saying it with her whiny voice while she plays alone in her bedroom. What happened to my sweet, innocent child? She has become extremely protective of her possessions and territory and is very vocal about it.

We invited her good friend, Iliana, to play with Allie’s new kitchen. I think I heard the word “mine” about 20 times from both of their mouths. The play-date ended very quickly as neither child would share.

My question to all you parents is: Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with this attitude? When does it end? It just started on Sunday and it’s been a whirlwind ever since. I’m trying a chart, (if she gets smiley faces on five suns for sharing she gets a treat). I’ve been trying time-out as well. I haven’t seen results yet but maybe it’s just too early.

Kelli took pictures of Allie while we were visiting. They turned out adorable. Kelli is so talented! You can see a few of them on Kelli’s blog

Nothing too exciting is going on at the moment; although the next few weeks promise some fun posts with our anniversary, my birthday, and July 4th coming up. For now, Allie and I have been having fun doing our usual daily routines.

At least once a day we do an activity on her mini table (a fabulous purchase from Ikea in Sacramento). We usually paint, play with play-doh, color, or play with dried beans. I hide her crayons in a big bowl of dried beans and then she has to shuffle through the beans to find them.

Here’s a picture of Allie painting. It’s a messy project and I am so grateful for washable paints. I was surprised at how easy the paint cleans up.

Allie also likes to help me around the house. She refills the bird feeder, wipes down the tables, throws her trash and diapers in the garbage, and just this week she helped me with the dishes. I’m sometimes tempted to do everything myself because if I let Allie clean, it takes double the time and I usually have to redo what she did anyway. But I just have to tell myself that if I’m patient with the learning process now, I’ll be rewarded with a great helper later (fingers crossed that she’ll continue to enjoy cleaning).

Last week I decided to do a photo shoot of Allie. It didn’t go as well as I had hoped. Allie was being her two-year-old, independent self and did not want to smile or even look at the camera. I needed another person there to help me. Actually, I just need Kelli here to take the pictures for me . Here are a few of the photos straight from the camera. I probably should do some editing in photoshop. Another day.

We finally got around to having Allie’s birthday party. The “pool party” was originally planned for her birthday but the weather did not cooperate so we had it two days later. She and five other kids splashed in the pool for awhile and then we had pizza, fruit salad, chips and cake. She opened presents and got some fun toys from all her buddies. We ended the party by giving each kid a goody bag.

Warning: This paragraph is for my own journaling. The theme of the party was centered around beach/pool party. We sent out beach ball invitations. All the plates were beach balls or beached theme and some of the food was served out of sand pails. They had Capri-sun Splash Cooler drinks to go along with the beachball cake. There were also cupcakes with the beachball design made out of m&m’s. The goody bag was actually a sand pail with toys in it.

I had fun putting this together but Jake thinks that I spent way too much time, effort and money on planning a 2 year old’s party. He’s probably right, considering Allie will never remember this but I enjoy party planning. I’m hosting a bunko party next week so it’s on to planning the next party.